Saturday, March 3, 2018

Editing F.U.N - entry drafted on 8th Jan 18 #lateposting

I'm having so much fun with the new iphone apps I had downloaded for photo editing, adding on to the PicPhotoCollage and Rakuga I had. My bestie, W, once commented that I should edit my photos (of people) so that I will look "brighter" and better when I commented that I hated posting pictures of myself in FB. Why I prefer to post natural 'nose-diggin' unglam shots is coz I want to scare the hell out of people reading my posts. Always believed it’s good to be Au naturel 自然美.

I've heard about Meitu but never used it. And so I was so free during the holiday that I downloaded and tried it. Wow! It made a load of difference coz' during the trip, my skin flared and was so dry and red like a snake going to shed its skin (I didn't even want to take any pictured), with Meitu I (took a selfie to try out) looked so 美美 just like a 模特儿. *vomit*

Infact, I was more interested in post-editing for my landscape and hopefully astro shots. I was really desperate to getting some "dots" in my pictures. So much so that I forgot which direction I took the photos. Haiyah! Don't care already, got dots better than not have any at all. Next time I will be better prepared, anyway with the Astro apps I downloaded I believe I should be able to do better.   
I learnt new things in the Astrophotography group in FB, I've learnt what is taking pictures RAW. What is stacking of photos etc... I've also learnt that many photographers also use Lightroom. 

Lightroom
With LR, I was able to bring out the stars for some shots. *dancing*  Thankful that I was quite 不甘愿 and decided to do some blank shots. So please don't ask me what constellation or planet or satellite is that.  

In Death Valley at 9.32pm on 21st Dec. During the night, I kept opening the door out to the "golf course". Yah, the back door leads to a golf course which I didn't know, I thought it was some big patch of land for us to stargaze until I saw two golfers playing golf (in the daytime) the next day. At some point, around 2+am, I saw some small streaks across the sky. I think that's Ursids ?? I believe the view would be even more spectacular out of Furnace Creek. 

Amazing how LR brought out the stars right? I have more shots in my iphone, I'll need to take some time to slowly edit the rests 

This is interesting. There's a online calibration software that helps you identify the constellation that you took. And apparently, this is what I saw that night.  
And while I was scruntinising the above original picture (the one with my watermark), I noticed something. What I've circled on this pink part is the tail end of Perseus. For a moment, I wondered if that was a nebula. And so I did a search on the star - Atik. 

extracted from :  https://www.universeguide.com/star/atik
Atik (Omicron Persei) is a blue rotating giant star that can be located in the constellation of Perseus. The star can be seen with the naked eye, that is, you don't need a telescope/binoculars to see it.

Wow! Cool........ 

Brightened up the picture to bring out the "blue"


Las Vegas on 17th Dec 2017



Any difference?  


Restoran Asli in JB on 20th Jan 2018, looking towards Singapore

First editing. Overzealous and I created an ominous picture. A storm is approaching!!

Second edit. Much better but I feel it looks fake. ?! 

Original pic

From greyish to purple-lish. Must figure out how to adjust it to look natural

More fun. School work hasn't piled up yet so I have the time. Relax a little first.... 

Santa Monica on 15th Dec 2017

Edited. Hmm....maybe it's too fake, I need to tone down. But you can see that twilight has changed just by moving the buttons from left to right 
Hmm.... makes me wonder how much of editing photographers really do. In that case, any Tom Dick or Harry also can be a photographer right? 

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